One bank account, two sides of the club
If your club runs a youth section alongside the seniors, you probably have one bank account, one subs list and one spreadsheet that was started by someone who has since moved on. The under-12s pay termly coaching fees. The first team pays an annual subscription. A parent pays for a tour deposit in cash at training. Kit money comes in from a sale held after a match. All of it lands in the same account, and at the AGM someone asks what the juniors actually cost the club last year.
The answer is usually a guess. This piece is about how to keep the senior and junior money apart from the start, so that the figures you give the committee are the ones you can show.
What to separate in the cash book
The cash book is the record of every payment in and out. Keeping it by section is a matter of agreeing a short list of categories and using them every time. A workable set for a rugby or cricket club with a youth side is:
- senior subscriptions
- junior subscriptions
- kit (sales and purchases)
- tours and away trips
- sponsorship and fundraising
- general running costs that belong to neither section, such as the pitch hire or insurance
Some clubs prefer to call these funds, so that each section has its own balance. Others use categories within one fund and report by category. Either works. What matters is that a payment for under-14 coaching does not sit in a line called "subs" with the first team's annual fees.
A point to settle early: if a cost is shared, such as the clubhouse or the insurance, decide how you will split it and write the rule down. A short note in the committee minutes is enough. Next year's treasurer will thank you for it.
On the Free plan, a starter cash book has one fund. If you want separate senior and junior balances in the same book, you will need Standard, which covers full books, members, subscriptions and reports.
Recording junior subs paid by a parent
Most junior subs are paid by a parent, often by bank transfer with the child's name as the reference, sometimes with a cheque handed over at the gate. The money belongs in the junior section. The harder question is what the member list shows.
The member is the child. The payer is the parent. Your records should show both, so that the person who pays is not confused with the person who plays. For each junior member, keep:
- the child's name and date of birth, or at least the age group
- the name of the parent or guardian who pays
- the contact details for that parent
- the section and squad the child is in
- the subscription year and the amount due
- the date and method of each payment
When a parent pays for two children, record one receipt against the household but allocate each amount to the right child. Arrears are easier to chase when the list tells you which child is behind, not just which family.
If a child moves from the junior section to the senior section at 18, or at another age you set, move the record across and note the date. Do not delete the history. The next treasurer will need it to explain why a fee changed.
Parental consent and who is the member
For under-18s, a club usually needs a parent or guardian to give consent for the child to join, to be contacted and to have their details held. Record that consent as a fact: who gave it, when, and what it covers. A tick on the registration form, dated, is the sort of evidence a committee can follow. Keep it with the membership record, not in a loose folder.
A separate question is whether a parent's payment is a gift. Some parents pay more than the set fee, and some clubs ask for "a donation towards the junior section" on top of subs. Treat these two things differently in your records. A membership fee paid for a place in a squad is normally payment for a benefit the child receives. An extra sum paid freely may be a gift, but whether it counts for Gift Aid depends on the rules, and not every payment that looks like a donation will qualify. Do not treat a subscription as a Gift Aid donation because it was paid by a parent who has signed a declaration.
This is general information, not tax advice. Check current HMRC guidance on Gift Aid declarations and membership benefits before you claim anything, and keep the records that show what each payment was for.
Reports the committee will actually read
Committees do not read forty pages of transactions. They read one page that answers the questions they are asked most often. For a club with a youth section, that is usually a split by section, set out in the same columns each month:
| Section | Income to date | Spending to date | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | subs, bar share, sponsorship | playing costs, league fees | |
| Junior | coaching fees, subs, kit sales | coaches, kit, pitch hire share | |
| Tours | deposits, fundraising | transport, accommodation | |
| Shared | general income | insurance, clubhouse, bank charges | |
Keep the shared line visible. It is where the arguments usually start, and a committee that can see it is less likely to argue about the juniors' share of the electricity bill. Add a single sentence under the table that says what changed since last month. The committee will read that sentence even when they skip the rest.
What to leave for the next treasurer
Treasurers change hands more often than anyone plans. The person who set up the sections will not always be there to explain them. Leave a short note in the cash book or with the handover pack that answers four questions:
- What are the sections, and what does each one include?
- How are shared costs split, and what is the rule?
- Where is the member list, and how is the parent or guardian recorded against each child?
- Where is the consent evidence kept?
One side of A4 is plenty. Date it and give it to the chair as well as the incoming treasurer. If the club uses Vasker, a handover pack can be exported as a single file, so the note sits alongside the figures it describes.
Where Vasker fits
Vasker is Gift Aid and bookkeeping software for UK organisations, including sports clubs. For a club with a youth section, the cash book, members, subscriptions and reports sit in one place, so the senior and junior figures come from the same records rather than from two spreadsheets that drift apart.
The Free plan is for a starter cash book with one fund. Standard, at £59 a year, is for full books, members, subscriptions and reports, which is what most clubs need to keep sections apart and show the split to the committee. There is no sales call and no setup fee.
If you want to see how your own sections would look, Start free: create your free account and set up the senior and junior sections in one evening. You can change the categories later as the club's needs change.
General information, not tax advice
This article is general information for volunteer treasurers. It is not tax or legal advice. Check current HMRC guidance on Gift Aid, membership benefits and any other tax point before you act on it, and check the rules set by the Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI if your club is a registered charity or a community amateur sports club (CASC) in Scotland or Northern Ireland.